Krispy Kreme Challenge!

So what do you do if you are just recovering from a marathon with no plans to race anything?  Why, you run the Krispy Kreme Challenge, of course!  This is a race where you run 2 miles to a Krispy Kreme where they have boxes of donuts waiting for you.  The challenge is to eat the entire dozen donuts and run back two more miles to the finish.  There is always someone from our racing team that goes out hard to win this race.  I, on the other hand, entered because our team was given a comp entry that no one else wanted (I waited until a couple of days before the race to ask for it), and I was NOT planning to eat the entire dozen.  If you don't eat the whole box, you can carry it back, and you receive a different colored finisher's shirt.  I could live with that.

I arrived at the race and did a 2-mile warm up with some team members.  Our great local photographer, Gregg Gelmis, was out capturing the event.  These pictures are all from him unless noted.

As the race started, I fell back and let many people in front of me.  I just took it easy.  When I arrived at the shop, I had no idea what to expect.  I found my teammate, Jill, going for first place.  I tucked in next to her and her friends to eat a few donuts.  I like this picture from James Hurley.  I'm all like, "Yes, I usually just stand around with a box of donuts in my hand in the middle of a race."  I'm actually looking away from the stack of donuts the guy in front of me is scarfing down!  Jill looks pretty miserable here.  That girl was doing amazing!

So after 4 donuts, I called it quits!  I took my box and started running (this was as per the instructions given on the race website, "Casual runners who are not competing to complete the Challenge may race back with a box of doughnuts to take home if they so choose.").  I look really happy about my finish here!  I just remembered to look up my time, and I was 4th female in the "non-challenge" category with a time of 38:04, or around an 8:00 minute pace for the running portion of my race (I ate for around 6 minutes).

Closing Thoughts

This race is for a good cause (United Cerebral Palsy), and it was a lot of fun.  I've never seen so many people having fun in a race!  I was able to bring home donuts to my kids and also get in a little run, so that was a win-win for me.  But, this race started as a fraternity challenge (so I heard anyway), and it's not really a good idea for anyone to eat an entire dozen donuts.  I didn't feel like I fit with the people scarfing down donuts.  There was the option to do teams of four, where the entire team eats only one dozen donuts.  I think that is a better option for me in the future.  Congrats to my teammates, Eric and Jill, who managed to eat the whole dozen and still post great running times with only a few minutes spent eating the donuts.  You guys sure helped me make a memory today!